TV

Mom is finally selling houses! Problem is she isn’t licensed. No big whoop for her, the test will be a breeze! Except she freaks when she meets Kim, a mega realtor who’s sold 358 houses and is getting recertified. She walks out of the test, assuaging her failure with a Chipwitch. Mmmm…now that’s something I can get behind: Chipwitch and a mostly Mom-centric episode.

It’s all about the Dad (finally!)! He’s got a new scheme for the restaurant! Well, I guess we know where Eddie Huang gets it from. This time, it’s a billboard advertising the restaurant at the longest stoplight in town. This is where the homeless guy reminds people they are hungry. Initially things go well with the signage — so good, in fact, that Mom and Dad get invited to a charity dinner at the country club. Mom really wants to go because of the movie Caddyshack, her favorite movie set in a country club. “So much yelling, it’s so good.” I’m sure I tread on some cult classic ground when I say, no, no it wasn’t.

The family is loitering in the frozen food aisle because Mom won’t turn on the AC. This becomes a running theme throughout the show that I don’t even know how to make sound funny — this is not starting well.

Five shows in and FOTB is now on Tuesdays at 8 p.m., yikes. Tough night and tough time slot — it’s like ABC wants this show to fail. Beyond Eddie Huang’s rant, most reviews have been positive and the ratings have been not half-bad. But having to go up against two versions of NCIS, The Flash, the last season of Parks and Recreation (oh wait, nobody really watches that either) — still, tough night. Like Eddie’s character, I’m hanging in. He wants to fit in, I want to be entertained with laughs. Let’s see which one of us gets what we want first.

Starting in Season 6, Top Chef: Las Vegas began a fresh twist on the show’s competition format that stuck: cash money muthafuckin’ prizes. After a day of being reduced to glorified data-entry slaves, we crunched the numbers and came up with the 13 richest, cash-prize-winning chefs to date in the show’s ten-season history.

Should we take it to mean anything that ABC seems to be burning off the show with all these back-to-back airings? When there are only six total episodes airing seems like a move to say “Hey, we have diversity, but you just won’t watch it.” I’d say the show isn’t all that funny, but I’m not a network exec — what do I know?